The White House on Monday morning revealed that President Donald Trump wants to do ‘whatever it takes’ to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table for peace talks with Ukraine, including slapping Russia with additional sanctions.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair joined ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s effort to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, including the frustration that Trump is having with both sides. 

‘Obviously, the president feels like we are making progress, but he’s been frustrated at both sides, which he’s made clear,’ Blair said. ‘He said over the weekend that the Ukrainians should have signed the deal with us weeks ago, and he wants them to hurry up and get that done. And Putin, [Trump] is very displeased with the attacks on civilian areas last week, and [Trump’s] put on the table increasing sanctions, secondary tariffs on oil, whatever it takes to make sure that they hurry up and get to the table and create peace.’

Russia launched a deadly missile attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people and injured at least 90, including children, on April 24.

When asked whether Trump was angry at the idea that Putin may be stringing him along, Blair pointed to a statement the president posted on his TRUTH Social platform on Saturday. 

‘Well, look, he put out a statement, I think, two days ago on his TRUTH [Social account], where he said he does not want to be tapped along, he won’t accept it.’ Blair said. ‘He’s displeased, again, with the attacks on civilian areas, and the president said it makes him feel like maybe he doesn’t want peace as badly as he says he does. And the president’s not going to stand for that. If that means increasing sanctions, he’s obviously put that on the table.’

Blair spoke to Fox News about one hour before the Kremlin announced a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine from May 8 to May 10 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. Kyiv did not immediately respond to the announcement.

Putin has previously said that he agrees in principle with a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal, though has so far refused to accept a complete unconditional ceasefire.

Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to temper expectations for a major peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, telling NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that while progress has been made, a deal is ‘still not there.’

Rubio’s Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ in a pre-recorded interview that aired Sunday that Russia won’t discuss any potential negotiations in public, though emphasized that Russia is ‘always available for a dialogue.’

More than two-thirds of Reserve and Guard troops are overweight, a potential threat to readiness and their ability to deploy at a moment’s notice, a new report by the American Security Project (ASP) found. 

Some 68% of the nation’s reserve forces are overweight, ASP researchers estimate. 

‘With the diminished size of the [active-duty] force and increasing demands on the National Guard and reserves, service members separated due to obesity and its comorbidities are vital personnel the Armed Forces cannot afford to lose,’ researchers concluded in the report.

The study calls for new policies to ensure troops’ health and better access to obesity-related healthcare. 

‘Completely unacceptable. This is what happens when standards are IGNORED — and this is what we are changing. REAL fitness & weight standards are here. We will be FIT, not FAT,’ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared in a post on X. 

An ASP report from October 2023 found that two-thirds of active duty service members fell into the overweight to obese category based on body mass index. 

‘These service members experience heightened risk for a wide variety of serious health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and osteoarthritis, which may lead to life-threatening health events such as stroke and heart failure,’ the report warned. 

Past studies from ASP have found a similar rate of obesity among active duty forces, based on the controversial BMI scale that does not account for muscle mass. 

However, the report warned, for reserve forces who hold day jobs and often live far away from military bases, ​’commanders and policy makers will not be able to combat these trends with a uniform approach.’

The report recommended further tracking and research of obesity rates within reserve forces, noting the Defense Department’s most recent data is from 2018.

Hegseth launched a review of grooming and physical fitness standards last month after voicing concerns that fitness standards have eroded and questioning whether mismatched standards for men and women are affecting readiness. 

It directed the undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to look at ‘existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards.’

The memo also called for a review to examine how standards have changed since 2015. 

The service branches began making accommodations for recruits who do not meet physical fitness standards in recent years as a way to address the recruiting crisis. The Army and Navy offered pre-boot camp training for those who did not meet physical fitness or testing scores. However, those recruits had to meet the same standards in order to graduate from training courses and serve. 

‘When I was in the Army, we kicked out good soldiers for having naked women tattooed on their arms, and today we are relaxing the standards on shaving, dreadlocks, man buns, and straight-up obesity,’ Hegseth wrote in his book ‘The War on Warriors.’

The Trump administration sanctioned three vessels and their owners for providing support to the Houthis – the Iranian regime’s network of terrorist proxies and partners, Fox News Digital has learned. 

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions Monday, following the Houthis’ efforts to deploy missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and naval mines to attack commercial shipping interests in the Red Sea – activities that ‘threaten global freedom of navigation and the integrity of international commerce.’ 

‘Today’s action underscores our commitment to disrupt the Houthis’ efforts to fund their dangerous and destabilizing attacks in the region,’ Treasury Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender said Monday, adding that the department will ‘continue to leverage’ its tools and authorities ‘to target those who seek to enable the Houthis’ ability to exploit the people of Yemen and continue their campaign of violence.’ 

The State Department designated the Houthis as a specially designated global terrorist in February 2024 and redesignated the group as a foreign terrorist organization in March. 

‘Providing material support to the Houthis not only carries acute sanctions risk, but also exposes vessels and crew members to serious safety risk from potential Houthi attacks,’ a Treasury Department official told Fox News Digital. 

A Treasury official told Fox News Digital that the Houthis control the strategic Yemen Red Sea ports of Hudaydah, Ras Isa and Al-Salif, and are funneling millions of dollars derived from port revenues and the seizure of refined petroleum products to fund a ‘reckless attack campaign against U.S. interests and those of our allies in the region.’ 

The official said the group sells refined petroleum products at ‘exorbitant prices’ on Yemen’s black market, which enables the Houthi operatives to ‘purchase military materials, create an artificial shortage of essential goods for average Yemenis, and fuels rampant corruption among Houthi leaders.’ 

Marshall Islands-registered Zaas Shipping & Trading Co. used one of the vessels targeted, the Tulip BZ, to facilitate the delivery of liquid petroleum gas to the Houthi-controlled port of Ras Isa, the Treasury said. It also has been used to transport petroleum products on behalf of Iran. 

Mauritius-registered Bagsak Shipping Inc. is also targeted, and facilitated the delivery of gas oil to Ras Isa using the Panama-flagged vessel, the Maisan. The Maisan also has been involved in the export of Russian crude oil and petroleum products from Russian ports since February 2023, according to a Treasury official. 

And Marshall Islands-registered Great Success Shipping Co. facilitated the delivery of gas oil to Ras Isa using the Panama-flagged vessel, the White Whale. 

The move comes after President Donald Trump officially informed Congress in March that he had directed the Department of Defense to move additional combat forces into the Middle East, as U.S. forces carry out military strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen. Those strikes have been conducted in an effort to stop attacks on American forces and commercial ships in the Red Sea.

‘I will no longer allow this band of pirates to threaten and attack United States forces and commercial vessels in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world,’ Trump wrote March 28. ‘We will act to keep Americans safe.’

He said the U.S. will continue striking until the group no longer poses a threat to navigation or U.S. personnel.

The strikes have been from Navy ships, Air Force bombers and drones targeting Houthi weapons, leadership and command centers. 

The airstrikes began after renewed Houthi threats against Israeli ships and attacks on U.S. forces, including seven Reaper drones brought down since March 3.

The Houthis began ramping up attacks in the Red Sea after the October 2023 Hamas terror attack on Israel. They’ve claimed responsibility for targeting U.S. warships and have so far avoided hitting Chinese and Saudi ships, raising questions among defense officials about their strategic aims. 

Earlier in April, the Trump administration sanctioned the International Bank of Yemen Y.S.C. (IBY) for its financial support of Houthi terrorists.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner, Jasmine Baehr, Brie Stimson, Caitlin McFall and Liz Friedan contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump made history during his first 100 days in office, surpassing former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s record for the number of executive orders issued during that same window. 

To date, Trump has signed more than 135 executive orders during his first 100 days in office during his second term — up from the 33 he signed during the first 100 days of his first term, and up from the 99 Roosevelt signed during that period too. 

The slew of executive orders indicates a shift in power away from the legislative branches and also indicates that Trump has a clear set of priorities he wants to accomplish during this term, according to experts. 

Trump’s approach signals that power has been diverted away from Congress and that the executive branch is assuming increased lawmaking authority — a trend that will likely continue into future administrations, James Broughel, a senior fellow at the regulatory reform-focused Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital. 

‘So much of the power in the federal government is now housed in the executive branch, and so this is really a sign that the president can implement a very vast and sweeping agenda through executive actions,’ Broughel said. ‘And so I would expect future presidents to probably follow Trump’s lead on this.’ 

These first 100 days are critical to setting the president’s agenda and driving media coverage of these initiatives — and that becomes more and more challenging as the term progresses, Broughel said. 

‘These initial directions coming early are very important, because you’ll run out of time in your presidency if they’re not, if it’s not set out early,’ Broughel said. 

Additionally, the Trump administration has advanced this plethora of executive orders because it had four years out of office to prepare and plan administrative priorities, according to Thomas Berry, the director of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. 

Berry said it is evident that the Trump administration has thought about what issues it wanted to target in the executive orders for a long time and that many of them are focused on dismantling hurdles he faced during his first term. That includes executive orders that ease restrictions on firing federal employees, Berry said. 

‘It seems clear that a lot of these executive orders are really aimed at trying to push past what they viewed as the obstacles to his agenda in his first administration,’ Berry said. 

‘The weakness of executive orders is they can simply be reversed by the subsequent president. It’s not set in stone in statute,’ Berry said. ‘The one possible exception for that is if you weaken an agency so much that it’s hard for it to be built back up under the next administration.’

For example, Berry said that massive staff reductions at agencies like the United States Agency for International Development could take several administrations to replenish. The Trump administration unveiled plans in March to cut thousands of staffers at the agency — which historically has functioned as an independent agency that works to deliver aid to impoverished countries and development assistance — and move its remaining functions to the State Department. 

Likewise, Trump signed an executive order in March to dismantle the Education Department and said that functions of the agency that oversee student loans and financial aid would move to separate agencies. 

Berry said the onslaught of executive orders is placing strain on the judicial branch, as there have been more than 150 lawsuits filed challenging Trump’s executive orders. Among these cases are high-profile ones, including ending birthright citizenship and banning transgender individuals from serving in the military, which are temporarily blocked. 

‘It’s making it hard for the judicial branch to keep up,’ Berry said. ‘It’s taxing courts to the limit, and it’s forcing courts to act fast, and the judicial branch doesn’t act as functionally when it’s forced to act really fast.’

‘To some extent, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy when Trump complains about judges ruling without much law or deliberation,’ Berry said. ‘It’s because the administration is kind of forcing them to by taking all these actions with immediate effect and not doing the normal time for deliberation.’

Berry anticipates that the pace of the executive orders will slow in the near future though since the majority of the ones that emerged during the first 100 days appeared to be pre-planned. 

‘They will, they will run out, I expect, certainly by the end of his first year, if not in the next few months, and then any remaining ones would be reactive,’ Berry said. 

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., staged a sit-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Sunday, taking a ‘moral moment’ to reject President Donald Trump’s agenda as Congress returns to Washington to negotiate the ‘big, beautiful bill.’

On the final day of the two-week congressional recess, Booker and Jeffries discussed their relationship with faith, invited Americans to share their experience of Trump’s first 100 days and sounded off on ‘what’s at stake with Trump’s budget.’ The sit-in’s hours-long livestream had amassed hundreds of thousands of views on X and YouTube.

Instead of church on Sunday, the Democratic leaders opted for a ‘sacred civic space’ outside the Capitol for more than 12 hours. Activists and politicians joined the Democrats throughout the day, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.

‘This is how we will stop cuts to Medicaid, this is how we will stop Trump and congressional Republicans’ devastating agenda, this is how we will rise,’ Booker said on X at the end of the sit-in. 

Democrats have been warning Americans about Trump’s ambitious budget bill since he was elected in November, claiming his budget cuts will threaten funding for entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. The Trump administration has maintained that no cuts will be made to those services, despite the anticipated $1.5 trillion in spending reductions and extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. 

As Congress returns to session this week, committees begin mark-ups on the budget framework passed by both the House and Senate before recess, with plans to finalize legislation by Memorial Day.

Trump added pressure to the negotiations on Sunday, posting on Truth Social that it is a crucial week for the budget bill, ‘which will contain Massive Tax Cuts, Strong Border Security Measures, Major Military Advancements, Dramatic Deregulation, Powerful Spending Reforms, and more!’

‘IT MUST BE DONE. We will unleash Economic Prosperity, and accelerate into the Golden Age of America,’ Trump said of his ‘big, beautiful bill.’

However, Democrats have a drastically different depiction of Trump’s vision for the country, and the 12-hour livestream on the Capitol steps covered their laundry list of concerns – everything from Department of Education cuts, Planned Parenthood funding and protecting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. 

‘This is a moment of moral urgency. We are in this moment where Congress is going to come back tomorrow from a two-week recess, and the Republican leaders on your side of the Capitol are saying that they’re going to force a bill through. They want to get it done during this work period and back over to the Senate to be voted on and put on the president’s desk,’ Booker said to Jeffries. 

‘This bill, we believe, presents one of the greatest moral threats to our country that we’ve seen in terms of what it will do to providing food for the hungry, care for the elderly, services for the disabled, health care for the sick,’ he added. 

Booker said the goal of the protest was to ‘center the stories of people who will be affected by this bill that will cut Medicaid so savagely and so many other things, to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.’

Booker, who celebrated his 56th birthday on Sunday, has been mocked by critics for similar stunts rejecting Trump’s second-term agenda. The New Jersey senator broke the record for the longest-ever speech on the Senate floor last month, speaking out against Trump’s executive orders, tax cuts and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency for 25 hours. 

He also joined his Democratic colleagues ahead of Trump’s joint address to Congress earlier this year in a social media campaign with identical scripts describing ‘S— That Ain’t True’ about the Trump administration. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has drawn tens of thousands of supporters to his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour rallies across the United States, told NBC on Sunday that ‘what Democrats lack right now is a vision for the future,’ as the party struggles to find a consistent message and clear party leader in the aftermath of big November losses. 

Booker’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by deadline. 

A Republican congresswoman from Iowa in a swing district has picked up an endorsement from a group working to elect more GOP women. 

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, was among a group of candidates in the House and Senate to receive first-round 2026 endorsements by Winning for Women PAC, which works to support free-market conservative women running for federal office. Cook Political Report – the leading nonpartisan handicapper – rates Miller-Meeks’ district as a ‘Toss Up’ in 2026. 

Miller-Meeks won her 2024 re-election bid in November after a recount confirmed her lead, helping her party pad its thin majority in the U.S. House and retain control of all four of Iowa’s congressional seats. She defeated Democrat Christina Bohannan in a rematch of 2022, when Miller-Meeks won by 7 percentage points. The 2024 margin was much tighter – Miller-Meeks’ lead over Bohannan was less than a percentage point, or fewer than 1,000 votes, according to the Associated Press. 

Miller-Meeks earned a first term in Congress representing Iowa’s 2nd District when she defeated Democrat Rita Hart by just six votes in 2020. 

She currently represents the 1st District, which includes the eastern part of the state and a swath of south-central Iowa, including Johnson County, home to the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Winning for Women PAC on Monday also endorsed Reps. Young Kim R-Calif., and Jen Kiggans, R-Va., in the House, as well as Sens. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, in the upper chamber. Kim and Kiggans’ districts both ‘Lean Republican’ in 2026, according to Cook Political Report. Moody and Ernst are both in ‘Solid R’ seats, while Collins’ district ‘Leans R’ in the 2026 contest.

‘Early financial support is critical, particularly in close races,’ Danielle Barrow, the president of the Winning for Women PAC, said in a statement obtained by The Hill. ‘Given Republicans’ narrow control of Congress, we are announcing our initial endorsements earlier than ever before to ensure we hold and expand our majorities. We look forward to endorsing more strong women leaders in Congress in the coming weeks.’

The House currently has 31 Republican women members, while the Senate has just 10. Winning for Women PAC has spent more than $20 million since 2020 on boosting Republican female candidates in competitive primaries and general elections.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.